A plus, a minus, for legislative session

Thursday

Every session of the Florida Legislature ends with a few actions that leave people scratching their heads. Sometimes, the failure to act is just as perplexing.

Take an issue that involved an unlikely coalition of greyhound track operators and a group dedicated to ending greyhound racing.

The legislation that both groups supported would have decoupled poker games from greyhound racing in Florida.

State law now requires greyhound racing as basically a loss leader if tracks want to hold other forms of gambling. That's an intrusion into private business, yet the bill died in committee in the House.

The legislation simply would have allowed tracks not to conduct greyhound racing in favor of other more profitable forms of gambling.

According to the group Grey2K USA, greyhound racing is dying in America.

Greyhound racing exists only in seven states, while the amount gambled on live dog racing declined by 57 percent between 2002 and 2010.

And the amount of taxes collected in Florida for live greyhound racing has declined from $75 million in 1990 to $2.7 million in 2010.

This bill needs to be passed next legislative session mostly because the state should not be forcing unprofitable businesses to remain open.

Resolving court fundingOne of the lesser-known successes of the past legislative session is tackling a funding crisis for Florida's courts.

It may not be especially popular to fund the courts, yet the third branch of government deserves a reasonable funding stream.

This is especially hard to swallow given the huge courthouse being built in Duval County, but that is an unfortunate distraction to a real issue.

Florida's courts had been funded by a series of fees tied to the housing industry. So when housing plummeted, so did revenue for the courts.

So the Florida Bar recommended a more stable funding source for the courts. The bar's recommendations were largely enacted by the Legislature.

It meant simply keeping funding flat. In addition, most of the funding will come from general revenue.

At the same time, additional funds were found for legal aid to the poor, an area that is becoming more crucial during these tough times.

In the future, the Legislature and the Bar ought to agree on a certain percentage of state funds going to the legal system so that planning can take place.

Florida devotes less than 1 percent of its state budget to the court system while some other states devote as much as 3.5 percent.

A reliable level must be found.

Washington: The privileged classGuess which part of the country has gone unscathed from the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression?

Guess which part of the country contains 10 of the top 20 wealthiest counties in the nation,­ including No. 1, 3 and 4?

It's the seat of our government in Washington, where incomes are high, benefits are generous and jobs are protected.

No wonder the people in the federal government are out of touch.

As documented in Time magazine, the median household income in the Washington area in 2010 was $84,523, nearly 70 percent over the national median rate.

Averages can obscure some things, and this one obscures the fact that Washington has one of the most dire pockets of inner city poverty in the nation. Even there, however, an awful school system was dominated by a sense of entitlement when former Superintendent Michelle Rhee took over.

So it's not being partisan to say that there are a great many cuts that could be made in the federal government - just like the private sector.

Rise in justifiable homicidesYou have seen the statistics: That justifiable homicide has surged since the Stand Your Ground law was enacted.

Well, that stat is only half-true, notes PolitiFact Florida.

The statistic that is most used is the increase in justifiable homicide from 33 in 2006 to 102 in 2007.

But that includes police-involved shootings, which may not have anything to do with the Stand Your Ground law.

More relevant is the increase in justifiable homicide by civilians from 12 to 42 from 2006 to 2007.

That's bad enough. Justifiable homicides by civilians is three times higher since the law was enacted.

Sen. Chris Smith, a Democrat from South Florida, says he would like to limit the Stand Your Ground law to home, car or work, not in the street.

And it should not include cases where the shooter provoked a confrontation, PolitiFact reported.

All of these issues are worthy of examination in the next legislative session.

A less segregated nationAmerica is less segregated today than at any time in a century reports a Manhattan Institute study in The Wall Street Journal.

Of 658 housing markets, segregation is lower in all but one of them since 1970.

All-white neighborhoods are practically extinct. And the number of all-black neighborhoods has shrunk significantly.

Fifty years ago, half of all African-Americans lived in all-black neighborhoods; now it's just 20 percent.

And the South is leading the way in integration. Dallas-Fort Worth and Houston were the nation's most integrated large cities while great progress was made in Atlanta.

The most segregated cities tend to be up north: Chicago, Cleveland and Detroit.

It's no longer legal to discriminate in housing, but public support for integration has increased, as well.

The promise of equality and opportunity in America continues to progress.

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